Community leaders and staff have more ways than ever before to engage with and respond to their residents. This suite of seminars can be attended as stand-alone sessions or as a development suite.

Description:

This training and development day is designed to enable delegates with the skills, confidence and plan to use social media more effectively

The course will concentrate on effective good practice, brand management, using social media to listen and choice of social media networks.

These working sessions will be highly interactive and delegates will be encouraged to take advantage of the networking opportunities from the day and discuss current challenges facing organisations using social media.

The objectives of the course are:

To consider how your organisation’s or department’s message and brand can be supported effectively on social media

To be aware of good practice, staying legal and managing positive and negative stories effectively

To understand the importance and of how to use social media for listening and understanding your service users.

To consider how to get the best from social media –creating interesting content, engaging and two-way communication.

To be aware of the different uses of the most popular social media platforms and their relative strengths, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Linkedin and WhatsApp and an awareness of using social media management tools.

As part of the programme, participants will be able to build an action plan based on a topic or issue that they are currently considering.

Programme:

9:30-10:00

Registration & Refreshments

10:00-10:15

Introduction

Your Objectives

Icebreaker – 140 character intro

Action plan discussion

10:15-11:15

Your brand and message

What do you want people to think about you?

What do you want them to understanding?

Guidelines and good practice

Guidelines ideas

The 3 rules of social media

Good practice examples

11:15-11:25

Morning Break

11:25-12:45

Social media platforms

Demographics, ‘rules’ and tone covering platforms at the request of participants but likely to include:

Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Instagram

Action plan discussion and areas participants want to explore

12:45-13:25

Lunch

13.25-14:35

Understanding your audience

Defining your audience

Active listening through social media

Using a social media management tool

The pros and cons

Hootsuite demonstration

14.35-14:45

Afternoon Break

14:45-16:00

Getting the best from social media

Creating interesting content

2-way communication

Building a community

Building a social media plan

The 5 questions

Refreshing your plan

Action plan discussion

16:00

Close

Who should attend?

The course will be relevant to both councillors and officers involved in using social media for their organisation and those that wish to wish to develop their skills in this area. Elected members will also benefit whether coming from a ward perspective or as a cabinet member and policy maker.

Speakers

Rachel Eden is an experienced trainer and leading member of a Unitary Authority. As a trainer she specialises in finance, management and social media and is a qualified management accountant. Rachel delivers training to individuals and groups ranging from employees of multinational corporations to volunteers at small charities.